Where the walls of separation fall

As my mother started gasping for breath again in panic on her deathbed, I suddenly had an idea. I started singing; after all she used to sing in the kitchen herself. I sang ‘Over The Rainbow’ and saw something in her relax. I continued singing and made-up words about the land beyond the rainbow, where everything is beautiful. I had never been so close to her, nor had we ever shared such deep intimacy. I, the mother, singing and showing her the way to the great letting go; she, the child, following. Her breathing became calmer and slower, and after twenty minutes it stopped for good. I kept holding her hand for a long time.

I feel privileged to witness birth and death, the two most beautiful moments in a person’s life. They are the most naked moments, stripped of all embellishment. It is an intimate encounter with life’s mystery, how it begins and ends. The whole colourful story of what happens between the beginning and the end is (still) absent. I believe anyone who has been present at a birth or deathbed understands what I mean.

My mother’s death marked the most precious moment in our otherwise difficult relationship. For a week, she lay on her deathbed in a small room at the nursing home, merely a breathing corpse. I sat next to her bed and held her shriveled hand. We were alone. I thought, “Please, it’s time to let go”.

Physical death is often referred to as the great death. Others also talk about the little death, meaning what the phrase “Die before you die” expresses. The little death is returning Home, to the Source or pure Consciousness, while you are still alive. The process is identical: shedding all adornments. Coming home to your Original Nature means leaving everything behind: your personality, your opinions, your likes and dislikes, your name and address, the colours and shapes, sounds, sensations and thoughts, movement, time… until ultimately there is only This, this Silent Immovable Consciousness itself that encompasses all those things, but is these not itself.

Even the little death is intimate. Whenever I observe another arriving Home, momentarily or for longer during a retreat or conversation, or living there steadily, I become absorbed in that Silence. Words are superfluous in this Home that encompasses us both. Even “both” drops away since we return home to the Same. You cannot be closer to another than where the walls of separation have fallen, landing us in the intimacy of our shared Being, which is the Being of the One. How slight, then, is the illusion that we are all separate people.

That is why I was glad we, as editors, chose to compile an issue on death. Death is always and everywhere. Every spiritual or religious tradition approaches it in its own unique way. In this issue of InZicht, you will find different perspectives and reflections. Loss, grief, resistance, and surrender are discussed, as well as that which transcends them. Where the walls of separation fall…